kye

Thanks @Charlie it's always interesting to see how other people approach a project!

I also thought your tutorial was good - well paced with the right level of information provided..  I'm definitely interested in more.  I'm especially interested in how you record things when you're out shooting

@jonpais - thanks!  Lovely images.

Can you share what picture profile and any important settings you used?  Those interested in emulating that look may find it useful

Thanks @John Brawley that makes sense, and the data logistics would be significant.  However, I thought someone had mentioned that Prores was preferred even in situations where the data rates were similar?  I probably should have included it in my original question

Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, or perhaps that statement might have been in a different context?

On 7/21/2018 at 9:32 PM, webrunner5 said:

Well I think the object of a travel video is to.. travel, to show movement, even if it is somewhat erratic. Now I a not into the 8mm jerky as heck stuff, but I don't think perfection is the goal either.

I think more of a Monopod look than a tripod look. Sure Gimbals are big now, but I don't  like them overdone either. They have their place, but not using it for the whole time.

I agree with you about the 8mm jerky look not being desirable, and considering that I'd rather keep a small setup that doesn't attract attention that's why I've opted for image stabilisation.  That shake was probably the one thing that I disliked about the BMPCC films I watched.

What is the monopod look?  What kind of camera movement does it have?  Is it a gentle but smooth movement perhaps?

1 minute ago, Anaconda_ said:

I wonder how that's going to change once ProRes RAW is more available and has been tested a bit more. From my understanding, the file sizes aren't much different to normal ProRes options, and the workflow should be much easier that working with CinemaDNGs once more editing software is updated to work with it. I guess it'll be like working with "hyper-LOG". ?

I'm curious to understand a bit more about how RAW differs to Prores in post.

To preface this, I'm a Resolve user and I don't know much about PP or FCPX, so maybe there are larger differences there?

In terms of Resolve, when you shoot DNG sequences:

• the sequence appears in the media browser and other windows as one item, the same as a clip, and behaves like one throughout
• the RAW panel is available (which isn't for other file formats obviously) but I think the defaults are just to defer to the camera metadata, so you don't have to change anything here if you don't need / want to (this is the part I'm less familiar with so maybe there are things you need to do here?)
• everything else behaves the same way a clip would

Assuming the above is correct and I'm not missing something, where is the extra difficulty?

Is it in extra processing power required to debayer the files perhaps?  Or does PP / FCPX not handle image sequences as clips?

People online talk about image sequences from time lapses as an extra bother because you have 'lots of files' or 'you have an extra step to combine them' but in Resolve that's completely automated.

22 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

31 - 23 = 8 seconds

With some more maths about what we know of the speed of light.... we can calculate the body size of this new Nikon camera!

To save everyone else the math, it takes light 8 seconds to travel 2.3 million kms.

I guess that's written the camera off for me - there's no way I can hand-hold something that size, even if it does have IBIS!

4 hours ago, SR said:

So I finally understood what RAID was thanks to this stupidly easy-to-understand video. My photography work (my current line) has gotten to a point where each projects (raw, PSDs) easily reaches 100GB to 500GB. Most of my video projects till now have done using the NX1 and GH5. And I am working on a few short scripts that I'll be shooting with the preordered BMPCC4K (first time working on raw or prores). With those in mind, I was trying to figure out a way to move and work on data effortlessly. So this video was tremendously helpful in understanding RAID, which has always intimidated me, perhaps because the information I found till date were so fragmented. 

I was thinking of getting the Synology 8 bay NAS DiskStation DS1817+ (Quad-core 8-bay NAS with AES-NI support, with over 1,179 MB/s reading and 542 MB/s writing performance), but I'm not sure what speed I'd need to handle 4k and prores. 

Also, I was curious on what RAID solutions each of you are using and how the experience has been.

Remember that RAID isn't a backup solution.  Yes, it protects your data if one of the drives stops working, but if your files get corrupted / you delete something important by accident / you get a virus / etc then it's still your only copy of the data.  The backup copy should not be connected to the computer (if it is then it can also be corrupted by viruses or software malfunctions) and ideally it would be somewhere protected so if you get robbed or if there is a fire then you still have the data.

The solution I'm working towards is having a RAID 5 system for the 'live' version of my data and archiving onto single hard disk drives as backup.
I just bought a 12TB drive and that is my 'live' drive and I have a couple of 4TB drives as backups (ie, I backup projects by date and when the first drive is full I then backup to the second).
My MBP isn't powerful enough to edit my 4K source footage so I make 720p proxy files and edit with these from the SSD in my computer so the speed of the drive with my 4K footage on it isn't a big deal for me at the moment.

In terms of your data rates for the Pocket 2, BM lists these:

Quote

4096 x 2160
CinemaDNG RAW - 272 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 3:1 - 129 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 4:1 - 97 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 HQ - 117.88 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 - 78.63 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 LT - 54.63 MB/s
Apple ProRes Proxy - 24.25 MB/s

3840 x 2160
CinemaDNG RAW - 255 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 3:1 - 122 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 4:1 - 92 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 HQ - 110 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 - 73.6 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 LT - 51 MB/s
Apple ProRes Proxy - 22.4 MB/s

1920 x 1080
CinemaDNG RAW - 66 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 3:1 - 32 MB/s
CinemaDNG RAW 4:1 - 24 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 HQ - 27.5 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 - 18.4 MB/s
Apple ProRes 422 LT - 12.75 MB/s
Apple ProRes Proxy - 5.6 MB/s
Storage rates based on 30 frames per second.

The highest there is for 4K60P which would be 272 x 2 = 544MB/s which the specs you quoted easily matched.

It's a bit of a separate topic but I think that lots of people are going to get the Pocket 2, and after testing the various codecs (and seeing the file sizes!!) will realise that a lower quality codec is absolutely fine for what they're doing.  To put it in context, YouTube 4K is something like 35Mbps, which is a hell of a lot less than the 2176Mbps of the Pocket 2.  Obviously you want to record at a higher bitrate than YT streams at, but I'm not sure that you need 62x the bitrate!!

@Aussie Ash I thought you'd chosen a bad frame to screenshot, but no!

Let the speculation commence!!

3 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Fair enough, I was just going by the product details. Seems strange to under estimate the speed so much haha. 

Yeah, I saw that and wondered if it was a different model, which is why I mentioned the model number on mine.

On looking a bit further the CFX650 seems to be a better model with the performance I got in my tests: https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-672

Something to look out for when purchasing I guess!

2 hours ago, Savannah Miller said:

There's maximum speed then there's minimum speed.  Not all cards can sustain the max speed for extended recording.  SD cards are particularly bad at this, that's why V60 and V90 standards exist.

If there are any tests you'd like me to perform just ask.

47 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Raw just doesn't happen out there as often as many forum goers think. 

Just people recording their kids and pets then...  I guess if you already own some m43 lenses then $1300 is worth it to have 4K 60P in RAW of Mr Mittens!!!

4 hours ago, anonim said:

I'd say No3 in 95% - Socialising, including soft psychotherapy... it include everything else as excuse.

I think it depends on which threads you look at, and which conversations you choose to read

1 hour ago, Robert Collins said:

Are you doing something like this?

 

That function is really handy..  My XC10 has a similar function, which I believe is a standard function from the Canon cinema line.  

Plus, that guys intro is really funny ???

15 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Don't buy this card. The write speed is only 160mb/s. These are the data rates specified in the Tech Specs for this camera on the BMD  website. These are also based in 30fps recordings, so basically double it for 60p.

I own two of the Transcend 128GB CFast 2.0 cards.  I don't know if they're a different model to the link posted, but mine both say CFX650.

Anyway, card #1:

Card #2:

Not quite enough for 4K60 at RAW uncompressed, but can do 4K30 RAW and can do 4K60 RAW 3:1 compression.

IIRC someone said that most commercial productions (TV I think) find shooting Prores sufficient quality and don't need RAW.  Especially if you're shooting 4K for a 1080 output.

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

Well it’s easy for him to say, since he’s shooting with an Alexa and Angenieux lenses, but I’ve just got a crappy old mirrorless. ?

I'd be happy with your crappy old mirrorless...  if your GH5 or A7III start cluttering up your place I'll let you store them at mine!!  

Charlies post got me thinking about this board and who is on here.  

I think it tends to be a place for a few situations:

• Contemplating upgrades
• Keeping up with technology
• Socialising

I don't see a problem with any of these, as even for people who shoot all the time there are still these situations

I don't think there should be less talk about gear, but I'd love if there was more talk about the artistic aspects of film-making as well.  After all, once you buy a camera and learn the exposure triangle the rest is really working out what to point it at! ?

Great stuff @Charlie!

Just one thing that looked like it might have been out of place - on the shots where she was silhouetted against the sunset the highlights of her dress were iridescent blue.  Was that intentional?  It looked more like the orange/teal grade had gone a little awry?

36 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Forgetting the rant at the end there (which may make a lot of sense) but is a totally different subject.

I fundamentally disagree (in most cases) with the point I have highlighted in bold.

Generally speaking, video editors 'want' as much power as possible to 'render' video. And 'as much power as possible' (as well as quite a lot of disk space) is the complete antithesis of 'small light and portable'' in every sense - battery life, sound, efficient use of cpu/gpu etc.... So what you end up with imho is a massive compromise on both usually at a very large expense. Your laptop isnt very powerful or if it is, it isnt very portable. You can add an egpu, docking station, decent display and laptop fan but all you really end up with is a feeble desktop with no portability.

So if you look at all the add-ons for a Macbook Pro, they really appear to me to be trying to recreate a 'desktop replacement' in a 'minute form factor' and that is almost certainly a concept for an extremely 'expensive' solution to the underlying problem. It might be the right one for some people but I doubt it is for most. I would guess for most people who split there time from needing 'portability' and 'power' - actually two computers makes a lot of sense. 

I think it probably depends on what kind of performance you're trying to achieve.

Adding an eGPU may not represent as much processing power per dollar as buying a dedicated desktop computer, but if it gives you sufficient processing power for your task then it might be the most economical option.  Your point about wanting as much processing power as possible is reasonable, however the usefulness of extra power is a diminishing returns equation.

If, for example, an eGPU gives your laptop sufficient power to edit 4K footage from your camera, then that might be enough.  

My MBP isn't able to stabilise footage in real-time, but that doesn't bother me.  It also can't play footage with grades applied in real-time, or render in real-time, but these are limitations I work around.  I suspect that these limitations are also things that quite a few other people would be willing to work around.  However, the fact my MBP can't play 4K footage from my camera in real-time is not something that I think nearly as many people are willing to work around.  I get around it by rendering lower quality proxy files which also mean I can fit lots of footage on the HDD in the laptop, negating the need to edit from an external HDD, which means I am even more portable.  

I suspect that eGPUs will mostly be used as a device to enable people to get real-time editing on their existing computer for less than the cost of a second computer.

There are also quite a number of overheads associated with maintaining a second computer that must be factored in too.  Im not familiar with PP or FCPX but having a second license for those, plus time configuring, applying upgrades, etc all contribute.  Personally, I replaced my previous laptop with another laptop knowing full-well that it gives less performance per dollar but it meant that I avoided all the overheads of a second computer, and all those moments when the cloud storage didn't sync / you forgot your USB HDD / the software didn't upgrade on both machines that risks you not having your files when you need them.

1 hour ago, Robert Collins said:

I'm not sure I agree. By the time you have bought your fan, external egpu and desktop monitor to recreate a fairly feeble desktop, you should realize that what you probably need is an iMac (pro). And if you need to save money and want to remain portable just get a fairly basic Macbook Pro 13.

What about if you want performance while in the studio but also need to retain portability?

For example for those who shoot travel films and will need something to do media management and the odd quick edit in the field, but who will return to the studio and will want more power.  Your solution proposes to have two computers, which is the least economical of all.

I've raised this point before, and it's not specifically aimed at you Robert, but there's a pretty significant undercurrent of "if you want high quality you have to shoot the way the pros shoot with a huge camera and shot lists and studio editing suites" or "if you want portability then you obviously don't care about quality - go and buy a camcorder and stop pretending to be a real film-maker" on these and other forums, and it's basically discrimination against the new types of film-making that technology is now enabling.

18 hours ago, deezid said:

I mean you can put your Macbook Pro i9 into a freezer, attach the Blackmagic eGPU to it and performance problems are solved.
I don't see a problem here...

I'm surprised that no-one has made a cooler for the MBP.  Considering that these computers use the case as a heatsink, all you would have to do is make a platform to put it on that gets a good thermal couple to the bottom and then have some way of getting rid of that heat elsewhere.

Things like these would have some effect:

but even something like a larger aluminium heatsink would probably get a better thermocouple, especially if you shaped it to fit snugly, and then you could have a much larger surface area underneath that with fans.

This might seem a bit ridiculous, but eGPUs only make commercial sense because they improve the speed of your computer, which lessening the thermal throttling will also do, and installing some fans and a heatsink is a lot cheaper than having an entire device with a video card in it!

I use the Transcend CFast cards in my XC10 and they work fine, but at 305Mbit I'm not exactly pushing their performance limits!  When I first researched them I read lots of reviews about the cheaper cards and these were the cheapest cards that people said were reliable in the higher bitrate cameras.

If I didn't already have any CFast cards then I'd use USB for the Pocket 2 for as long as possible, and only then buy CFast.  

CFast is something like 8x more expensive per GB than SSD!  The Transcend are currently $2 per GB (128Gb $250 at B&H) but the Samsung T5 is 25c per GB.  

There are probably cheaper reliable CFast now available, but the T5 is also probably not the most economical device either, and even if it's only 5X or 3X difference, that's still a huge cost considering the amount of storage required for the high-bitrate codecs.

7 hours ago, Snowbro said:

I was forced to take an art appreciation class in college, it actually made me understand how important the scores to movies are. The sound design is massively important, I just doubt I will have time to become a master at it. Hopefully I will still have time to make stuff I find interesting once I finish school & get into a career.  

Absolutely..  sound design is massively important, and we can tell that because Silent Movies are not common, but Blind Movies (aka, music) is a $17B industry!!

But, to be a bit less tongue-in-cheek, it's a hell of a lot harder to make people cry or jump around (dance) with a silent film than with music

19 hours ago, heart0less said:

Tiffen allowed downloading this file so it's super easy to just grab it, put into Resolve and start tweaking.

Would love to hear your results.

Here it is:

Summary is that you can't simulate it perfectly, but you can probably do a passable job in certain controlled situations.

13 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

I may just go ahead and pull the trigger. Just picked up Andrew's Pro Color and I liked "Totolo-Vision" on the a7sII, a profile shootout is in order. I'm camped out in Arizona right now, daily highs are touching 110f where I am, not exactly 'get out and shoot' weather. 

The more I see from this camera the more tempted I am to just buy one too!  I told myself I'd wait for the Pocket 2, and Canon and Nikon FF Mirrorless unicorns, but it's very tempting!!

I quite like the look of the Tiffen Black Pro Mist filter, and thought that I could simulate the effect in Resolve.  (This conversation started in another thread but I think it deserves its own)

My theory was that if you can simulate it in post then it's more flexible, so you can mix it in to taste, and its also cheaper, applies to all your lenses, can be applied to historic footage, etc..

Here's the video showing what these filters do thanks to @heart0less 

I've had an attempt and I'm now convinced that a completely accurate simulation is not possible.  

To explain why, here's an unmodified screen grab:

and here's the waveform of that shot:

Here are the reasons you can't do a completely accurate emulation:

The Tiffen doesn't "clip".
The flare from the light globe is much brighter than the flare from the hair light on the blond lady, but in the "no filter" waveform you will note that these have very similar values because the globe is clipped.  Also, the flare from the globe is coloured, which presumably is from the tint of the globe, however because the waveform is clipped that colour information is lost.

The Tiffen has a very wide flare pattern and will include lights outside the field of view.
There don't appear to be any flares from off-camera lights in the above shot, however we can tell that the Tiffen has a very wide pattern because the level of the dark background is raised for almost the entire width of the frame but the exposure seems to be the same (by comparing the levels of the grey cards at the left of the shot).
If you are using this filter and it is being hit with sunlight from any angle I think you'll get the influence of that everywhere in the shot, because although it might be very off-angle the sun is practically an infinitely bright light.

However, I think we can probably make a passable attempt that might work in some situations.

Here's the original of lady #1:

and my simulation:

Lady #2:

Same simulation as above applied to lady #2:

The logic of this preset is this:

The Tiffen has a non-linear rolloff, so I have simulated it using blurs of two different sizes, one smaller size applied to the Highlights and a larger one applied to the Mids and Shadows.  If I really wanted to get serious about it I might try converting to a Log colour space and doing the blur in there before converting back to REC709, but that's something for another day.

I think that preset looks pretty good for both of these shots, but unfortunately, if we apply that preset to the main shot then we see that it definitely isn't suitable for all shots:

If I play with the levels and add a third blur that is highlights only and is even smaller radius then we get a better result, but it highlights the issues I mentioned earlier:

If you're going to try and use this effect in post then I would suggest a number of things:

• Shoot in Log and don't clip any highlights from any colour channel
• If you move the camera don't have any lighting going in and out of the frame (because the effect will start and stop when it does which will look very un-natural)
• Experiment with applying the effect before you convert from log to any other colour space (after all, a Tiffen filter gets applied before the conversion)
• Experiment with different blur types - I used Gaussian Blur in the above, but maybe other types will look nicer?
• The Mids and Shadows processing chain is the kind of "beauty" element, and the Highlights processing chain is the "flares" element, so you can mix these to your taste

I hope that is useful, and that Tiffen don't object to me using clips from their video!!

Just now, heart0less said:

It's worth noting that it was shot with 1/4 Black Pro Mist and that's why these highlights are so nicely diffused.

Yes, I noticed that and have already opened a YT search for reviews!

I think I've looked at it previously and concluded that I could get a similar effect in post, but I never actually did an A/B.  I think I might grab a few examples of with/without shots and see what Resolve can do to simulate the effect.  There's a lovely plugin called Glow that does a similar thing (I believe).  If I have any progress I'll share it, as doing things in post is more flexible (and cheaper!!).

1 hour ago, heart0less said:

This is one of the few videos shot on a7 III that made me somehow believe in its video capabilities.

This one is also appealing to me, though shot on a7R III.

Thanks! Those videos are lovely.  

The more I look at footage the more I think that there's something about the way cameras handle highlights that I am sensitive to, the shot at 1:40 in the A7III video (the light bulb in the background) was very nice.

I'm looking forward to the A7III finding its way into the hands of the masters who know how to make it truly shine and we can get more examples of its potential.  In a sense if it can shoot Slog to match their cinema cameras then the rest is in capturing and grading well.

19 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

A pretty strong comeback to the i9gate issue...

It would have been good if he quoted a percentage figure for how much faster the i9 was - those bar graphs all looked quite consistent at about 10-20% faster with the i9.

28 minutes ago, mercer said:

Magic Lanterm does if you’re using a native Canon lens. 

Is that ML records the focal length, or Canon records the focal length and ML displays it to you?

I was hoping to get it for clips from the XC10 as well as my 700D.